Sept. 24: Deep Red Polling Mystery

post from FiveThirtyEight on 25 September 2012 12:26:41 PM. © FiveThirtyEight

The totality of the evidence from states that are almost certain to go for Mitt Romney seems to be most consistent with a 5- or 6-point national lead for President Obama.

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ery/

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EU Report Credits Obama Administration For
Helping Build U.N. Coalitions On Human Rights

post from ThinkProgress on 25 September 2012 12:26:00 PM. © ThinkProgress

At the U.N. General Assembly this morning, President Obama spoke forcefully in favor of free speech and human rights more broadly, saying “Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views — even views that we disagree with.” The General Assembly was, as it turns [...]

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Paul Ryan Demands Return Of Unionized NFL
Referees: It Is Time To Get The Real Refs

post from ThinkProgress on 25 September 2012 12:21:43 PM. © ThinkProgress

Hours after union-busting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) tweeted that he wants the “real refs” back on National Football League fields this weekend, another Wisconsin Republican came out in favor of the locked out union referees while on the campaign trail. The Green Bay Packers lost on a controversial last-second play that was ruled incorrectly [...]

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Ann Coulter: Liberals Have Been "Play Acting
Against Nonexistent Racism" For Decades

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 25 September 2012 12:14:57 PM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

From the September 25 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

Previously:

Ann Coulter On ABC: "I Think Civil Rights Are For Blacks," Not Feminists Or "Gays Who Want To Get Married"

Coulter On African American Republicans: "Our Blacks Are So Much Better Than Their Blacks"

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Consumer confidence rises to highest level in six
months

post from Daily Kos on 25 September 2012 12:12:45 PM. © Daily Kos

In what could be good news for the Obama reelection campaign, The Conference Board reported Tuesday that consumer confidence index as measured in the first half of September has risen to its highest level since February. But the volatile index has fluctuated sharply since then. Last month, it hit its lowest level since November 2011.

The index is widely watched because consumer spending makes up some 70 percent of U.S. economic activity. Lynn Franco, director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board, stated Tuesday:

The Consumer Confidence Index rebounded in September and is back to levels seen earlier this year (71.6 in February 2012). Consumers were more positive in their assessment of current conditions, in particular the job market, and considerably more optimistic about the short-term outlook for business conditions, employment and their financial situation. Despite continuing economic uncertainty, consumers are slightly more optimistic than they have been in several months.

The measure, begun in 1977, is calculated from a baseline of 100. It has remained well below the 90 reading that indicates a healthy economy since the recession began in December 2007. It was at its lowest-ever point since the board started keeping records when it hit 27 in late 2009. The average confidence level during the three years since the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009 has been 69.4.

Consumers are more optimistic about the next six months than they are about current conditions, the survey showed. Those saying jobs are ?plentiful? rose to 8.3 percent from 7.2 percent. Those saying jobs are ?hard to get? edged down to 39.9 percent from 40.6 percent.

Doug Short and Steve Hansen warn:

Observers of consumer sentiment polls should be aware they are imperfect quantifications of opinion. The question arises whether they are a rear view window or a forward looking indicator ? or possibly a little of each. There is little question, however, that poor consumer sentiment corresponds to poor economic performance. Econintersect believes that consumer sentiment is mostly a coincident or lagging economic indicator.

Whatever the caveats, the latest index, like other measures of the economy, once again shows that digging out of the deep economic hole created by the Great Recession will continue to be a long-term effort.

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Ryan: Preventing Gay People From Marrying Is A
Universal Human Value

post from ThinkProgress on 25 September 2012 12:10:26 PM. © ThinkProgress

Paul Ryan reiterated his opposition to marriage equality, during a town hall in Cincinnati, Ohio on Tuesday. “The things you talk about like traditional marriage and family and entrepreneurship. These aren’t values that are indicative to any one person or creed or color. These are American values, these are universal human values,” he said in [...]

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Scott Brown staffers caught on tape making war
whoops, tomahawk chops

post from Daily Kos on 25 September 2012 12:06:23 PM. © Daily Kos

This is repulsive.

That's campaign staff for Scott Brown, responding to Elizabeth Warren supporters with war whoops and tomahawk chops at a recent rally. What's even more repulsive is asshole Scott Brown's response:

"It is certainly something that I don't condone," said Brown when asked about the video. "The real offense is that (Warren) said she was white and then checked the box saying she is Native American, and then she changed her profile in the law directory once she made her tenure."

No, the real offense is Brown's asshole staff members, but that flows from the top down. The real offense is to those Native groups that Brown and the Massachusetts GOP trotted out to condemn Warren. They are probably damned offended by this display from Brown's staff. Where's Brown's respect for the heritage of Native Americans now? Of course, he never gave a shit about whether or not Native Americans were offended by Warren, and he doesn't give a shit whether they are now.

Brown is losing and he's desperate. He has nothing to run on, so he's trying to make this election about "character." In the process, he's exposing his, and it's ugly.

Please donate $3 to Elizabeth Warren on ActBlue.

There's also discussion in lynne1's diary.

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Matt Damons The Promised Land Takes on Natural
Gas and Fracking

I’ve gotten slightly tired of movies in which corporate executives or lawyers who have done dreadful things to people come to conscience, not because I don’t believe that scenario can’t be emotionally and artistically powerful as it was in something like Michael Clayton, but because I tend to think that corporations are generally forced to [...]

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Rep. David Rivera's Missing Pal Has Troubled Past

Almost three weeks after she went missing, the whereabouts of Ana Alliegro, the Florida political operative and friend of Rep. David Rivera (R-FL), are still unknown.

We do now know a bit more about her, though, thanks to The Miami Herald. In a story published Monday night, the newspaper offered more details of Alliegro's past legal run-ins — from driving with a suspended license, to minor shoplifting, to shooting at her ex-husband — and her role in the campaign of an upstart Democratic congressional primary candidate.

Alliegro, a self-described "conservative bad girl" who this summer served as campaign manager to Justin Lamar Sternad, disappeared just before a scheduled meeting with federal investigators on Sept. 6. According to reports in The Herald, prosecutors think Alliegro served as a go-between for Rivera and Sternad, a 35-year-old part-time hotel employee who challenged Joe Garcia for the Democratic nomination in Florida's 26th Congressional District. Sternad's efforts reportedly benefited from $46,000 in secret money linked to Rivera. Garcia and Rivera are facing off in the general election in November.

This isn't the first time Alliegro has attracted attention from law enforcement, the Herald reported. In 2007, she was arrested after a dispute with her ex-husband, Moshe Cosicher, at his Miami home. Alliegro apparently wanted to get remarried, and in the course of a conversation, she grabbed a gun:

She then sat naked at a desk with her leg up and compared the gun to a male sexual organ.
"If you think your [expletive] is powerful (showing the gun), this is mine," Alliegro told Cosicher, who tried to ignore her by going to make coffee, a report said. Alliegro followed him and told him to sit on the couch.
She fired a round into the ceiling.
"You see. It's loaded -- this is business," Alliegro allegedly said. He tried to leave.
"She shot at me when I approached the front door (she missed my head by inches)," Cosicher wrote in a police statement.

Alliegro — whose grandfather was Senate president in Cuba during the Batista era, and whose father helped train contra rebels in Nicaragua for the U.S. military — has made several unsuccessful runs for public office. A decade ago, she was criticized by county auditors for failing to verify $48,000 of campaign expenses from a failed 2001 bid for Miami-Dade County Commissioner.

Earlier this year, Alliegro contacted Sternad out of the blue, after he had decided to run for Congress, according to the Herald.

Enrique Yabor, a lawyer for Sternad who previously paid Alliegro for help in an unsuccessful run for a county judge seat, told the paper Sternad did not know if Alliegro was working for Rivera, despite the fact that she once told him, "I'm friends with this guy so if by some miracle you win, I will support my buddy David."

Rivera has denied being connected to Sternad, and an unsigned statement from his campaign to TPM earlier this month disputed a claim made by the Herald, that Rivera and Alliegro met the day before she vanished.

Read the whole story here.

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era_troubled_past.php

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Team Obama is Cheap

TEAM ROMNEY is not cheap, if you compare what he is paying his campaign staff.The line reads: “the president appears to be getting a much bigger bang for his buck.”That’s true. If you think underpaying campaign workers is laudable,[...]

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http://www.taylormarsh.com/blog/2012/09/team-obama-is-cheap/

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